Gregory the Great, on 1Sam 2:13

“Nor the office of the priests to the people: but whosoever had offered a sacrifice, the servant of the priest came, while the flesh was in boiling, with a fleshhook of three teeth in his hand,”

“4. For what is it to immolate a victim, except to offer the confession of true faith to almighty God? And what are the vessels in which the flesh is cooked for the sacrifice, except the minds of the faithful? For when they believe that the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, is the true Only-begotten of the most high Father, surely in them the flesh is cooked which is to be immolated to God through the service of inmost devotion. Who is the priest's servant other than the people subjected through obedience to the faithless pastors of the Synagogue? He is fittingly called a servant, because while he preferred to hold to the weak things of the law according to the letter, he refused to grow into a perfect man through the Gospel. But what does it mean that he is assigned to seize the portions of food by force? What again does it mean that he is said to hold a three-pronged fork in the violence he inflicts? The food of the chosen soul is the person of the Redeemer. This food is indeed cooked in the sacred vessels, while through the heat of the Holy Spirit it is prepared for the sweetness of refreshment in the minds of the elect. For the flesh is cooked when, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, we both firmly believe and effectually confess that the Lord's humanity was assumed into the nature of divinity. Hence also through Moses he suggests that the flesh of the Paschal Lamb is to be eaten, saying: "You shall not eat any of it raw, or cooked in water" (Exodus 12:9). To eat it raw is, apart from the grace of the Holy Spirit, to believe our Redeemer to be a mere man. It is cooked in water when the essence of the Redeemer is sifted through human wisdom. The Jews therefore eat it raw, the heretics cooked in water, because the former deny his divinity, while the latter, through human wisdom, empty out the mysteries of both his divinity and his humanity. The priest's servant is therefore sent to take away the food of the faithful, because the Jewish people, expelled from faith in the Redeemer, strove vehemently to tear away the love of faith in him from the hearts of the faithful. He is fittingly said to have held a three-pronged fork in his hand, with which he might prevent from being cooked whatever portion of flesh he could pierce and draw out. For the fork thrust by the hand of the servant is the persecution of the Jewish people against holy Church. And because he tried to harm the faithful with enticements, punishments, and terrors, the fork indeed had three prongs. But it is rightly said that what the fork lifted up, the servant took for the priests, because it was a great feast for the wicked prelates if the crowd of their fawning or raging attendants could overthrow someone whom they had recognized as standing firm in the height of our faith through confession. ...”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.